The statement below is reprinted from a flyer distributed at a counter-protest on December 1, at Seattle City Hall against Ultra-rightists who are gathering there. OWLS is a co-sponsor of the rally.
We rally today to protect our communities from racist, anti-Semitic and misogynist violence. The recent murders of worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue and African American shoppers at a Kentucky grocery store, along with rising hate crimes across the nation, show that now is not the time to be silent. Now is the time to confront the far right’s violent actions and toxic ideology.
We unite to challenge the Washington Three Percenters – an armed militia group that has previously appeared in Seattle alongside white supremacist, misogynist groups. Three Percenters provided security for the Unite the Right gathering of torch-bearing racists in Charlottesville, Virginia last year. They are wannabe storm troopers, one among several like-minded far-right groups that appear in Seattle – from the Proud Boys (street fighters who regularly assault anti-fascist protesters) to Turning Point USA (that organizes nationally to exclude Muslims on campus and posts a Professor Watchlist threatening anti-racist faculty).
We gather also to denounce Redoubt News – a far right, online media outlet that co-sponsored today’s “Liberty or Death” rally with the Washington Three Percenters. They attack other media sources and espouse the misogynist and racist views of a far right minority. In public they deny these views. They try to get the media to present them as influential and respectable (with a knowing wink to their followers).
Stop far-right attacks! An injury to one is an injury to all!
Working families are angry over stagnant low wages, unaffordable housing, crushing student debt and disappearing pensions. The right wants that anger directed at others – struggling immigrants, people of color, women, Jewish people and other minorities – not at the obscene wealth gap and corporate profits. Their agenda includes contempt for independent thought, on campuses and in the press, and a war on labor unions.
Working people of all colors, beliefs, genders, sexualities, abilities and homelands have a common need to defeat the far right before it gets stronger and becomes a broad foundation for fascist politics. Fascist themes include: a mythic past of white supremacist, male chauvinist “national greatness”; distortion of truth to foster “us” versus “them”; claims to be victims of the very minorities they blame and abuse; and deceit and corruption to advance the rightist program.
The far right cannot gain a foothold if advocates for social justice — community groups, labor movement activists, political organizations, campus networks and individual residents — mobilize to confront these bullies. Mass protest action can stop the right! Since Charlottesville, mass action has regularly dwarfed the fascist turnout.
We are building a resistance coalition ready to defend every targeted community in our city and welcome broad participation. For more information email 12.1.18.seattle@gmail.com For a multiracial, united defense of everyone targeted by the far right!
Co-sponsors of today’s counter protest: ANSWER Coalition, Freedom Socialist Party, International Socialist Organization, Organized Workers for Labor Solidarity, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Radical Women, Seattle Democratic Socialists of America.
Endorsed by: Dyke Community Activists, Palestine Solidarity Committee, Puget Sound Socialist Party, Seattle Gay News, Seattle Silence Breakers, Social Equity Educators, Washington Federation of State Employees Local 304.